ustxtxb_obs_1999_08_06_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

Immediately following “Flashpoints,” interim station manager Garland Ganter \(imported by Pacifica executive director Lynn Chadwick from Pacifica’s Houston station, KPFT, where he is staand was being placed on administrative leave. When Bernstein refused to leave the station, he was threatened with arrest by Ganter and his armed security guards. But Bernstein was soon joined in his defiance by the rest of the station staff. A portion of the loud argument between Bernstein and Ganter was broadcast live over KPFA, attracting numerous protesters who surrounded the newsroom and the station. After several hours of fruitless negotiations, were arrested at management’s insistence and removed. Paid staff members were placed on administrative leave, the station’s doors were locked and chained, and the windows boarded. Around-theclock protests began outside the station. Ganter told the Observer that he was asked to join Chadwick in Berkeley to help with administrative chores, and that in enforcing the gag rule, he’s simply trying to maintain “balance” in the news coverage. “I just didn’t want to see the flagship station go dark, you know, to get sucked into a black hole, and that’s why I’m here,” Ganter said. Since the lockout began, the station, staffed by Ganter, few contract staff, has continued to broadcast but only pre-recorded tapes and recorded music. Ganter dismissed charges by his colleagues that he is acting as a “scab” for Pacifica management. “Nobody’s been fired,” he said, “so I disagree when people call me a scab.” Last year, ostensibly to bring Pacifica into compliance with long-standing Corporation for Public Broadcasting rules, the national governing board became self-nominating, and pro hibited concurrent local-national board membership. Critics accuse Chadwick and her predecessor Pat Scott \(both former C.P.B. Task the withholding of C.P.B. funds \(about 15 percent of Pacifica’s anenforced for twenty years were not immediately complied with. If not overturned by the recent lawsuit filed by local station staff, the new national policies could damage community radio in Berkeley and elsewhere. They would leave Pacifica free, for example, to pursue management’s apparent project of “shutting down that unit [KPFA] and re-programming immediately.” That’s a quote from the now notorious Palmer e-mail, which Media Alliance made pub ater. re Otte newsworthy .widely. covere d conferenc e , Pacifzca’s hit-man from Houston, Garland Gainer \(station : man me . bounced out of the station like a drunk b from a bar, calling on Pacifica’s new piivate security force: literally hired guns from IPSA International. IPSA, as their e speech rnovern vement’ on to if. , ow Hs en d a rep It was . r.,roadcast and orter to Allen Gil!sit was also utionary P m ern the,. side. per.’ first U.S. edia to to get the national and theVietnam to first 11 ard , North of astonishing tinas: when cop, hoPng 1 k soualt ransforma tions: T was training ifica, pac the an d turn th a tim e fansforma 4,;ng to be a the ;clock bac to join t on the communists. Now, to my shock and profound disappointment, Pacifica, guided by extraordinary amounts of ignorance and arrogance, has been transformed from a network created to “speak truth to power” to one apparently committed to using all power necessary to suppress the truth. On Tuesday, July 13, my bosses at Pacifica set a new standard for censorship at KPFA in Berkeley when they pulled me off web site helpfully explains, specializes in “hostile terminations,” corporate down sizing, and the needs of the new corporate executives, which can no longer be met by –“traditional law enforcement” includ ing even military sharpshooters for particularly difficult situations. Pacifica insists that the new security measures were for our own safety, and in response to a rumored radical takeover of e rec e ate inte rviews rsion cam en entrance e sts h o had been for idc c s, c amera r Iviews fiurn Goebbels” [Hiders s man said Fahhri . was citi reli e k fl e a spokesperson for a community radio n she allowed everyone into the press conference, even calling on me for a question. The next day, in a staff meeting called by Lynn Chadwick, I was told explicitly by Garland Gainer that despite Pacifica’s “non-disclosure” policy \(a.k.a. the gag ever was being widely reported in the mainstream media. Yet a few hours later he ecau 22 THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 6, 1999